(light music)
- So my work with Nexus is looking at taking various
waste water sources from the solar facilities
and treating them so that we can reuse them
on the solar field.
- The main idea of this technology is to use
the free and renewable energy from the sun
to treat water and provide the clean water.
- The additional benefit is when the panels are clean,
they produce more electricity.
You can gain five to 10 percent,
depending, you know, how much dust deposits on the panel.
- So we have developed a solar water Nexus trailer.
And this is a mobile water treatment trailer.
That includes many different water treatment technologies.
My component of the Nexus trailer
is a pilot-scale membrane distillation process.
So this is membrane-based process that operates
on heat, as opposed to pressure.
(light music)
The benefits of this are that
as long as we have a heat source,
it's very inexpensive to run.
At a solar facility, we have a lot of excess heat.
So by taking advantage of that heat
and utilizing that to run our membrane distillation process,
we're helping the solar facilities be more efficient,
as well as being able to clean the water.
But also in the trailer,
we will have other treatment technologies.
- So we are going to put an oxidation unit,
a UV unit, then a cup of simpler membranes,
and then another react with ion exchange.
The goal is to use this trailer for advanced treatment.
- We're also developing important preliminary data
for future funding opportunities.
This gives us the opportunity to put some
of this new technology into place,
test it in the field, as well as the lab,
and demonstrate the capabilities
that we're developing here in the state of Nevada.
- The ultimate goal is to develop a treatment trained
for them so that they can treat water that they have.
Mainly waste water that they cannot discharge
or that they want to reuse.
It's not only Nevada,
California has a tremendous need for water treatment,
mainly because they have very stringent regulations.
So we can drive this trailer to any place in California.
- This NSF EPSCoR project has been great for me.
As a new assistant professor,
as a young faculty member getting started out,
it's hard to have resources to put together infrastructure.
So being able to purchase a pilot-scale system,
a membrane distillation system, has been huge.
Also it's just allowed me to build some collaborations
very early that I wouldn't ordinarily have built.
- One of the impacts that this grant, EPSCoR grants have,
it's the formational, educated people,
people with high education.
We had graduated many competent people,
competent students that would help Nevada stay
at the top of the solar energy.
We will protect our environment
and also use our water resources wisely.
(light music)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét